I'm a minister and a sexologist. Yes, those words do go together! I am also the executive director of the Religious Institute (www.religiousinstitute.org), a multifaith organization dedicated to sexual health and justice. I hope you'll join me in exploring the connection between sexuality, religion and spirituality, and the need for sexual justice in our faith communities and society.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Love Your Enemies -- Albert Mohler Helps Us Get Out the Word About the Seminary Study

A few days I told you about how excited we were that Rev. Dr. Martin Marty wrote his weekly column on the Sex and the Seminary Report.Well, it turns out that Dr. R. Albert Mohler, the president of the largest Southern Baptist Seminary, did so as well. You can read it at www.albertmohler.comDr. Mohler, who you may remember opined last year that if it turns out that homosexuality is genetic, perhaps it might be a reason to support selective abortions. He said our study of the seminary is "really about turning seminaries into agencies for a liberal and revisionist sexual agenda."What? Actually, it is about giving future clergy the skills they need to counsel, preach, and educate about sexuality issues in the context of their faith traditions.He apparently "knows" quite a bit about me, probably I guess from his time as a Focus on the Family board. (Focus once ran an article on me, titled the "high priestess of immorality."] Here's what he said, Debra Haffner's name will be recognized immediately by anyone involved in issues of sexual controversy in recent decades. She is an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, but previously she served as chief executive officer of SIECUS, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, and, among other positions, as an official with Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington. She has been pushing a radical sexual agenda for a long time.

Well he got the jobs right. But a radical sexual agenda? Hardly, Dr. Mohler. The vast majority of Americans support sexual justice: almost 9 in 10 support family planning services and sexuality education, a majority support the Roe decision, more than six in ten now support civil unions or marriages for same sex couples. More, the majority of Americans want to make sure that the government does not dictate their own personal sexual decisions.On a positive note, he did say that the report was "riveting." I hope you'll agree with that.